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KATIE 


A DAUGHTER OF THE KING 



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KATIE 


A DAUGHTER OF THE KING 


MARY A. GILMORE 



PHILADELPHIA : 
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO., 

JO5 SOUTH I5TH STREET. 


Copyright^ 1891^ 

By a. D. F. Randolph and Company. 


7W COPIES RECtlVES- 





NOTE. 



'HIS story of A DAUGHTER OF THE 


King was originally published in “The 
Churchman,” and by the kind permission of 
the editors, is now issued in the present form, 
in the hope that it may continue to recall to 
the King’s daughters that in all our towns 
and cities there are many little heirs of poverty 
and suffering to whom the thought of another 
heritage may bring a happiness such as their 
more fortunate sisters are scarcely able to 
realize. 


M. A. G. 



KATIE, 

A DAUGHTER OF THE KING. 


CHAPTER I. 



‘HE bell of the Episcopal mission-chapel 


^ was clanging harshly as Miss Winthrop 
passed into the porch beneath it. The bell was 
cracked, and called the congregation with a 
sharp, hoarse voice; but it performed its duty as 
faithfully as any of its sweeter-toned neighbors, 
if not as acceptably to the ear of a carping public. 
Miss Winthrop sighed and looked anxious, as 
she approached her class of girls, — for two 
reasons : she was a very delicate little woman 
whose zeal was fast outrunning her strength ; 
and her girls were about as uninteresting, and to 
all appearances about as unreciprocative, a lot 
as ever fell to religious instructor. To-day, 
however, a surprise awaited her. Beside one of 


6 


Katie t 


the youngest and poorest (they were all of a 
hard-working class) sat a new-comer, — a thin 
little creature, whose face attracted irresistibly 
by its contrast to her dress and surroundings. 
Her features were regularly formed, and the un- 
healthy whiteness of her face was redeemed by 
a pair of big black eyes that looked out with a 
half-frightened, half-wondering gaze, pitiful to 
see in one so young; but the chief attraction 
was her hair, — a mass of golden floss that had 
evidently defied any efibrt of brush or comb, 
and stood out like a halo all around the little 
head. 

** What is your name, my dear?*' Miss Win- 
throp asked. 

The child rubbed one ragged boot against 
the other, drew up one shoulder, and after a 
shy glance at Miss Winthrop, turned her eyes 
appealingly to her friend, who answered 
briskly : — 

“ She ’s Katie, ma’am ; she ain’t ever been to 
a place like this before, and wanted to come 
with me.” 

“ I 'm glad to see you ; I hope you ’ll like it,” 
Miss Winthrop said cordially. 


A Daughter of the King. 7 

The child’s shyness melted under the genial 
reception. 

“ I came more for Sally than for me,” she 
said, with a bright touch of color rising on her 
cheeks. 

“ Who is Sallie? ” 

Sallie ? why, she ’s the girl I live with. I 
take care of her. Her aunt is away sewing all 
day, and Sallie and I keep house. She is lame, 
and don’t walk any ; so I go out and see things, 
and then go back and tell Sallie, and it ’s ’most 
as good, she says, as if she saw them.” 

“ You must make her very happy.” 

** Pr’aps ; but you ought to hear the stories 
Sallie tells ! She makes ’em up right out of her 
own head, and tells ’em to me.” 

The child had forgotten her diffidence; her 
desire to describe the unknown Sallie had made 
herself sink into nonentity. 

“And you take all the care of her?” Miss 
Winthrop asked, wonderingly. It was no new 
thing in her experience for young girls to 
mind the house and take care of babies ; but 
this child looked hardly more than a baby 
herself. 


8 


Katie. 


*‘Yes’m; that’s what I’m there for. If I 
did n’t take care of her and keep house, Aunt 
Abby Ann would send me to the ’sylum. She 
isn’t my aunt, she’s Sallie’s,” as Miss Winthrop 
looked mystified. 

“ Why, what is your name? ” 

“Just Katie; I ain’t got any other. They 
found me in the street one night when I was a 
baby, and took me in. Sallie’s mother was 
livin’ then, and she would n’t send such a mite 
away, she said, — that was me, ma’am ; and 
when she died she asked Aunt Abby Ann to 
keep me, ’cause Sallie would be lonesome with- 
out somebody. I don’t think she likes to, — 
I ’m ‘ one more mouth to feed,’ she says,” — the 
tiny mouth quivered as Katie made this confes- 
sion ; “ but I could n’t bear to leave Sallie, and 
she says it would kill her if I should go ; so I 
work as hard as I can to pay for my keeps.” 

The white, earnest little face glowed elo- 
quently as she spoke of Sallie ; but as she con- 
cluded with the slight reference to the “ hard 
things at home,” it contracted sharply, and that 
pitiful, wondering expression came to her eyes, 
as if the great questions of life that are left 


A Daughter of the King. 


9 


generally — thank God — for grown folk to grap- 
ple with, had been ever present with this child. 
Miss Winthrop’s eyes filled. Resolving to learn 
more of the waif cast up at her door, she drew 
the wandering attention of her class to a plan 
she hoped might appeal to them now and re- 
main with them, perchance, through the week. 
This was the description of one of those helpful 
societies lately sprung up in the land, called 
“ The Daughters of the King,” and the propo- 
sition that they should form one of the bands 
of ten. 

“ Katie will just make our tenth,” she added, 
kindly, to the child beside her. It was some 
time before she could make them thoroughly 
understand the object. They could pledge 
themselves to correct some special sin, or de- 
vote their energies to some special act of 
charity ; the only requisite was that whatever 
they did should be done for God himself, a 
direct act of love as from a daughter to a father, 
the motto being: “In His Name.” If it in- 
volved some sacrifice, so much the better ; 
indeed, that was the principal idea, — a giving 
up, a preferring of one another “ In His Name.” 


10 


Katie, 


So much discussion ensued that Miss Winthrop 
despaired of their ever being agreed upon one 
aim. At length one of the girls suggested that 
each should pledge herself to do some special 
thing known only to herself, and then Christ- 
mas day they could meet and compare notes. 
Miss Winthrop hesitated. 

“ It is not like anything I Ve ever heard of 
in this connection,” she objected; “the help is 
in the idea of mutual work and support.” 

“ But it says, ‘ Whatsoever ye do, do it in my 
name,’” pleaded another, “doesn’t it? so I 
don’t see what difference it makes.” 

“ Perhaps not,” Miss Winthrop assented ; 
“ we ’ll try it if you like, though it seems hardly 
the right way to work.” 

To tell the truth, she was so pleased that she 
had at last struck a chord of interest that she 
was willing to let them try the plan as they 
liked, and they went away filled with the new 
idea, and with quite a degree of interest in the 
silver crosses fastened with royal purple 
ribbon, and marked “ In His Name,” which 
Miss Winthrop promised them on the next 
Sunday. 


A Daughter of the King. ii 

‘‘Is it over?” Katie asked, as the chil- 
dren filed out of the room after the closing 
exercises. 

Miss Winthrop had watched her intently all 
through the service ; the child’s eyes had never 
left her face while she was speaking, and often 
her lips had moved as if she were learning a 
lesson, or repeating Miss Winthrop's words. 
While the children sang she gazed about, not in 
open-mouthed wonder, Miss Winthrop noticed, 
as is the general manner of little waifs from the 
street, but with an intelligent air, as if she were 
taking in all she possibly could of the building 
and people in it; and Miss Winthrop could see 
that she cast shy glances at the girls* dresses, 
looking back upon her own, which bloomed out 
in patches of the original color of the cloth, in 
brilliant contrast to the dingy and faded ground 
of the garment. She leaned forward till the 
mass of fluffy hair, falling in a golden veil upon 
her shoulders, hid her face from the lady, who 
felt, nevertheless, that the child was looking 
now at the row of feet along the floor. Invol- 
untarily Miss Winthrop drew in her neatly 
fitting, thick-soled walking-boot ; though it was 


12 


Katie y 


not her best, she felt that it would show a cruel 
contrast to the torn leather covering that poorly 
concealed the daintily shaped foot within. She 
had a very tender conscience, this little woman, 
and for the hundredth time she felt accused 
that her own feet should be so comfortably 
shod when so many little ones went almost 
bare. 

Katie sighed, and drew in her feet; next her 
eyes sought Miss Winthrop’s hands, which were 
gloved, and her own, bare and already rough- 
ened and reddened by labor, but delicate and 
as finely formed as any child’s could be. She 
hid them under the corner of a little fringed 
shawl that she wore about her shoulders, and 
let her gaze wander to a memorial window that 
rose at her right. 

** Is it over?” she had asked, wistfully. 

** It is for now,” Miss Winthrop answered ; 
“ but,” hoping to draw a little more confidence 
from her, ** stay a few minutes with me, and tell 
me how you like it. What do you think of 
our plan? Did you quite understand it?” for 
Katie’s eyes met hers with a perplexed, ques- 
tioning look. 


A Daughter of the King. i} 

** Not quite, ma’am,” she said, adding, apolo- 
getically, “ I Ve never been to a place like this 
before, and I would like to know more, so as to 
tell Sallie. I did n’t know we had a king. 
Where does he live; and does he wear a 
crown? ” 

Oh, my dear ! ” 

Was it possible in these evangelizing days 
there lived a child who had never heard of the 
King of kings? But it was an easy task to tell 
of Him to this little one, who, she found, did 
know of Him, but only as a God who lived in 
the sky. It made her realize with what a force 
the knowledge, so common as to be unappre- 
ciated by many of us, would come to one for 
the first time, as the pale little woman watched 
the pale little child opposite her, and told in a 
few graphic words the story of the Wonderful 
Life of eighteen hundred years ago. Katie 
listened intently, as she heard of the birth at 
Bethlehem. Her interest never flagged as the 
incidents of that holy life were touched upon, 
and when the dark end began to lower the little 
mouth twitched. 

“ They killed Him, and all His mother and 


14 Katie y 

friends could do was to stand by and see Him 
suffer.” 

Miss Winthrop was startled by the sudden 
grasp of the claw-like hand. 

“ Don’t make it end so,” the child begged ; 
'‘don’t let Him die. It’s such a pretty story; 
but we don’t like bad endings — Sallie and I.” 

“But, my dear, I can’t help it; it’s a true 
story.” 

“ Truly?” 

“ Yes, every word ; but that ’s not the end,” 
and she went on to finish the story of that short 
Life, whose influence has lasted through the 
long centuries. 

“ And was He the King? ” 

“ Yes, and you must try to think always that 
you are one of His daughters.” 

A bright smile flitted across the child’s face. 

“ It ’s nice to know I ’m somebody’s daugh- 
ter,” she said, with unconscious pathos. “ I ’ll 
think of that till I find my mother; Sallie says 
maybe I ’ll find her some day.” 

“ That is just the difference, dear, — you may 
never find her; but you can’t help being a 
daughter of the King — we all are.” 


A Daughter of the King. 15 

“ Everybody? Is Sallie? ” 

Yes, indeed; why, Sallie’s very name means 
* a princess.* ” 

“ Say it again ; I want to tell her that. I 
thought kings and their children were all dressed 
beautiful, and never were hungry, nor had to 
work, nor wear torn clo’es.’* 


i6 


Katie t 


CHAPTER II. 

HAT is the difference between an earthly 



king and this one. No matter how 
poor, or sick, or tired, or plagued we are, we 
must try to be patient and cheerful, knowing it 
is something He wants us to do, and some day 
we will know why. We may not be able to 
give Him money; but we can give Him our 
patient, willing service, and try to find opportu- 
nities to do good to somebody worse off than 
ourselves, and that will be doing something “ In 
His Name,” — something that He specially 
likes. He was poor Himself, you remember, 
when He came here a little baby, and I think 
the worse off His children are, the more He 
must love them. Now, dear, we must go. Tell 
me once more where you live, and I ’ll try to 
come to see you this week.” 

The sun shone through a rosy pane of glass 
and turned to burnished gold the soft hair 


*7 


A Daughter of the King. 

hanging about the white little face; it was 
raised with touching confidence to the woman 
as they went out together. 

“ Does n’t it — does n’t this,” she stammered, 
pointing to the dingy gown that the cool autumn 
wind wrapped around her slight figure, “ make 
any difference? Are you sure the King 
would n’t mind seeing a daughter of His like 
this?” 

Something blurred Miss Winthrop’s vision a 
little — the wind was quite sharp. 

Quite sure,” she said ; “ you may be satis- 
fied that He understands all about it.” 

‘‘ Thank you,” Katie said ; “ Sallie ’ll be so 
glad to hear it. I must go this way ; it ’s getting 
late, and she ’ll worry. Good-by, ma’am,” and 
the tiny figure flew around the corner, and dis- 
appeared so suddenly that Miss Winthrop was 
fairly amazed. 

‘‘ I feel as if I ’d been entertaining an angel 
unawares,” she said to herself. ** The King’s 
daughter, all glorious within — how could I ex- 
plain that to such a baby? Yet she seemed to 
understand everything, — she must be some- 
thing out of the common run of children. She 
z 


i8 


Katie y 


is no child of the slums, and she said she was a 
foundling. Whom does she remind me of ? 
I must surely see her this week.” 

But alas ! by another Sunday Miss Winthrop 
was lying upon a weary bed of illness, and this 
good resolve, with many others, had to be laid 
aside indefinitely. 

The rosy gray of the autumn day was fast 
deepening with the setting sun as Katie reached 
the bare rooms that she called home. Impetu- 
ously she burst open the door, and a ray of 
golden light illumined the room. Immediately, 
also, multitudes of small, colored papers, and 
snips of recent cuttings rose on the breeze made 
by her entrance, and filled the air with a con- 
fused mass of color. 

“ Oh, Katie, see what you Ve done ! ” wailed 
a plaintive voice — such a tired little voice ! 
such a weary-looking little body ! 

Sallie lay upon an old lounge in the brightest 
corner of the dark room, surrounded by sheets 
of brilliantly colored paper, and fashioning from 
them bunches of gay roses, scarlet poppies, and 
carnations that fairly rivalled nature. Propped 
up here day after day Sallie lay, her fingers 


A Daughter of the King. 19 

making up by their ceaseless activity for the 
enforced idleness of the rest of her crippled 
body. 

Katie looked at the confusion in dismay for a 
minute, then she said, — 

“Wait, and they ’ll settle; what’s the use of 
going after ’em? ’Never mind ’em anyway. 
Sallie, what do you think I ’ve heard? ” 

“ I don’t know, — something long, I guess. 
I thought you ’d never come.’’ 

“ Sallie, what do you think, I joined a 
’ciety ! — and it ’s the ‘ Daughters of the 
King ! ' ” 

“ Is it the same as the ‘ Daughters of Re- 
becca’? what Mrs. Rounds belongs to?” Sallie 
asked with interest. 

“ No, not at all ! ” this with pronounced 
scorn. “ Oh, I can’t begin to tell you ! It ’s 
like your stories, Sallie, only it ’s all true. You 
and I and everybody are the * Daughters of the 
King.’ ” 

“ It ’ll take lots of pretending to play that, 
Katie,” Sallie remarked, gravely. 

“ It ’s more than a pretend, — it ’s true ! * 
and with breathless haste Katie repeated, almost 


20 


Katie y 


word for word, all she had heard that day. 
Talking so fast and earnestly herself, she did 
not notice the subdued excitement in Sallie’s 
eyes, till as she paused for breath a moment, 
the little creature beside her cried, — 

I always knew it ; I always said so, Katie. 
You are a princess really ! You know you are 
different from the rest of us, and now somebody 
else has said so.” 

Katie looked puzzled. 

** Miss Winthrop said this kind was different; 
it did n’t mean rich folks, — anybody, every- 
body was the King’s daughter, — only some 
didn 't know it and some did n’t care. You are, 
same as me, Sallie.” 

** I ? ” A look of pitiful ridicule passed over 
the child’s face as she glanced at her old dress 
and the crippled leg that it barely hid. 

** Yes, she said your name meant ‘ princess,’ 
too; now what can we do for the King, you 
know? They were going to keep it a secret, 
but you and I need n’t.” 

“ I think it ’s a mistake, Katie ; the King 
could never have meant me for a daughter, else 
He 'd have made me whole ; but it ’s just what 


A Daughter of the King, 21 

I always knew you were,” and she reached 
out her poor little hand and drew a lock of 
Katie’s shining hair caressingly through her 
fingers. 

“ No,” Katie insisted ; “ she said no matter 
how sick or poor, — and she thought He loved 
those best.” 

“ But what could I do? ” 

“ I don’t know, Sallie, I ’m sure. If we could 
find somebody poorer than us; but I don’t be- 
lieve Aunt Abby Ann would let us give away 
our supper or dinner, even if it ain’t much 
anyway.” 

The two little figures sat perfectly quiet in 
the falling twilight, whose kindly dark was un- 
able to cover the exceeding bareness of the 
room. One stretched on the hard old couch, 
with limbs twisted and body racked by much 
suffering; the other perched uncomfortably by 
her side, drawing the little shawl about her 
shoulders and hugging her knees in an effort 
to keep both ends warm at once, these two 
little far-away daughters of the King bent 
all their childish energies, sharpened by want 
and suffering to womanly wit, to find an 


22 Katie f 

acceptable offering to the Sovereign of the 
world. 

Their meditations were brought to an abrupt 
end by the entrance of an angular woman, 
whose eyebrows were uplifted and the corners 
of her mouth drawn down in a perpetually 
querulous expression ; even her nose expressed 
the same general dissatisfaction, and raised 
itself with an air of protest. Katie hurriedly 
collected the scattered papers. If Aunt Abby 
Ann made no verbal complaint, her “ uncom- 
fortable” manner spoke volumes, and she 
could not bear to see the room “ cluttered up.” 
Poor woman, she lived up to her light, as old- 
fashioned folk say; but her light was a dim 
one, and a hard fight to keep body and soul 
together had almost entirely extinguished it 
Her neighbors remonstrated with her for 
keeping the two children. The Asylum was 
a vague and mysterious retreat that she herself 
often held over their heads when she was more 
perplexed and irritated than usual; but in 
spite of the extra expense, she was not really 
hard-hearted enough to send away her sister’s 
crippled child ; and as for the other, she knew 


A Daughter of the King. 


2 } 


she was doing a good thing by herself in keep- 
ing Katie to care for Sallie and “ mind the 
house” (for the child did all of a woman’s 
work) during her long twelve hours’ absence 
from home when she toiled with her needle. 


24 


KatiCt 


CHAPTER III. 


LL through the week the children dwelt 



^ upon the new idea ; the story related by 
Katie had surpassed in interest any of Sallie’s 
own inventions, and was eagerly seized by this 
strange child, who at once proceeded to elabo- 
rate it. It seemed as if the law of compensa- 
tion had given to Sallie’s mind a wonderful 
force of imagination to make up for the lack of 
vigor of her body. Lying day after day on the 
hard couch in the small bare room absolutely 
devoid of any beauty, this tiny, white-faced child 
changed like a magician, with her wand of mar- 
vellous imagination, everything that was bare 
and cold and grimy into warm, bright, and fan- 
tastic surroundings. Until now one of the 
favorite themes of her “ pretending ” had been 
Katie’s future possibilities. The manner of her 
advent among them — it was nine years now 
since Katie had come to live with her, and 


25 


A Daughter of the King. 

they were both about two when she had been 
found — appealed strongly to Sallie. The fact 
that everything worn by her pointed, though 
vaguely, to her having been lost out of luxu- 
rious surroundings, the exquisite delicacy of 
her flesh, preserved through common fare and 
hard work, even the finer and glossier texture 
of Katie’s hair were all conclusive proofs to 
Sallie that Katie was a very different creature 
from herself, perhaps a princess in disguise, 
whose parents and kingdom would eventually 
be found, waiting to restore her to her proper 
place. This was one of the reasons why the 
story of the King’s daughter appealed so 
strongly to her fancy; it might be true, as 
Katie had insisted, that she too was one; but 
in any case there was no doubt about Katie, 
and at once they began to ** pretend.” The 
little room no longer bounded their existence, — 
it was one of a long suite, — and at dusk, when 
it was too late to work over the paper flowers, 
they were put aside, and the ‘‘ princesses,” 
lying in state upon their couch, called for lights, 
and watched the stars as they came out one 
by one. 


26 


KatiCf 


**lt seems to me the 'tendants are a long 
time lighting up to-night,” Katie ventured. 

“ You forget how large the palace is,” Sallie 
returned, severely. 

‘‘ They don't seem to make very much light, 
either.” 

Katie’s imagination was more limited ; it 
could not always keep pace with her sister 
princess’s. 

** The King is not here, to-night, and of course 
we don’t have so much light till He comes.” 

“ When is he coming? ” 

“I don’t know; I think, maybe, by Christ- 
mas. Did n’t you say Miss Winthrop told you 
He came then?” Princess Sara asked, coming 
to realities abruptly. 

“She said He did once; but He came then a 
little baby. I don’t believe He ’d come that 
way now. Have you thought what to do for 
Him?” 

“ No ; I tell you, Katie, there ’s a mistake, — 
if I was His daughter, really. He ’d tell me what 
to do. I wish we knew more about it. Why 
do you s’pose that lady has n’t been to the 
palace? ” 


A Daughter of the King. 


27 


“ Maybe she forgot the way. I ’ll find out 
more next Sunday; but it 's long to wait.” 

“Yes, sometimes I think I won’t have time 
enough.” 

“Why, what do you mean?” Katie asked, 
her eyes big with alarm. 

“ I get so tired, now-a-days, and I can’t sit up 
as long as I could ; maybe by and by I can't 
any.” 

“Do you mean you might get worse and 
go — ” Katie stammered over the hard 
words. 

Sallie nodded slowly. 

“Yes, it seems queer to think of it; but I 
can’t do much but think of things, you know 
and somehow, lately, I 've thought I might 
never grow up like other folks. I could n’t 
with this, anyway,” and she touched the twisted 
limb softly. 

“ There, Katie, don’t feel bad, — maybe I ’ll 
get stronger instead ; ” for the golden head had 
sunk lower and lower, and the tiny frame beside 
her was shaken with hard internal sobs, as 
Katie, young in years, but womanly of intuition 
where the child of her childish maternity was 


28 


Katie, 


concerned, heard expressed in words for the 
first time what had been like a dark shadow 
before her for many weeks. It seems an un- 
natural talk for children ; but these little 
prisoners of poverty” are aged unnaturally 
always ; and thrice welcome should bodily weak- 
ness and isolation be, if it result in preserving 
any degree of childish innocence. 

The time did seem long till Sunday, and a 
grievous disappointment awaited Katie when, 
having gone to the mission room with courage 
raised to the sticking-point, and fully resolved 
to ask several perplexing questions of the genial 
woman, there appeared, not Miss Winthrop, but 
a tall stately lady, whose dress of heavy black 
increased her height and stateliness and a 
general forbidding air that surrounded her like 
an atmosphere. Katie, whose shyness only 
thawed under very sunny conditions, shrank 
into a corner and dared not open her lips. She 
fixed her dark eyes on the lady, however, with 
a gaze that allowed not a single item to escape. 

** She looks like a princess,” Katie thought ; 
** I wonder if she is a daughter of the King. 
Her mouth is proud, but her eyes are sorry. 


A Daughter of the King, 29 

She looks as if she could be nice if she would, 
but she would n’t.” 

The lady spoke just then. Her voice was 
clear and cold as a distant bell on a frosty 
morning. Miss Winthrop, she explained, was 
very ill ; she might never be any better, though 
of course they hoped she would. She had sent 
them the ten little silver crosses marked “ I. H. 
N.,” with her love, and hoped that by Christmas 
they would have very good results to tell. Then 
she asked them to read the lesson, which, curi- 
ously enough, was the forty-fifth Psalm. The 
girls smiledtas they read, “ The King’s daughter 
is all glorious within.” The tall lady saw that 
Katie had no Bible, and handed her her own. 
As Katie shyly reached out her hand to take it, 
the movement brought a mass of golden hair 
over her arm. The child’s dark eyes, fixed 
steadily on the woman, saw a startled expres- 
sion come over the latter’s face ; it was gone in 
an instant, but the lady’s hand trembled a little 
as she gave the book, and she did not speak for 
several minutes. 

Katie could read very little. She held the 
elegantly bound Bible, with a silver clasp and a 


30 


KatiCf 


silver cross, on her knees and arcely dared 
touch it. She listened closely to the reading, 
however, hoping to find her information through 
it, if not through Miss Winthrop. 

When the crosses were given out only one 
was handed her, and the disappointment of not 
having one for Sallie was so great that Katie 
was almost impelled to ask for it. Three times 
she tried, but every time she looked at the 
stately lady she found the cold, dark eyes — curi- 
ously like her own, if she had but known it — 
fixed in their turn steadily upon her now, and 
the shy child shrank behind her veil of golden 
hair. But her grief broke forth when she 
reached home, and showing Sallie the little 
cross, was obliged to confess that there was 
none for her. Sallie received the news, Katie 
thought, with apathy; but she found that it 
was because she, too, had something to 
communicate. 

“We’ve got to move,” Sallie said. “Aunt 
Abby Ann says the ‘Works ’ are going over the 
river, and she can’t walk four miles a day back 
and forth, and she can’t pay car-fare, either ; so 
we ’ve got to move.” 


A Daughter of the King. 31 

“ Then we sha’n’t hear any more about the 
King?” 

“Yes, we shall; you’ve got the cross, and 
maybe Christmas you can come back and hear 
what they ’ve done.” 

Though it created a diversion, the flitting 
across the great city did not take away the ab- 
sorbing idea from the children. Indeed, after 
they were once settled, it became evident that 
the actual field of little Sallie’s interest was 
more and more limited to her immediate sur- 
roundings, and in proportion to the narrowing 
of her bodily limitations her mental activity in- 
creased with feverish impetus. The room that 
her time was spent in now was in the third story 
of a moderately good tenement house. It was 
newly built on what was only a few years back 
a country road, and with more care than is 
generally shown a few of the many and lofty 
trees had been spared. It was with some diffi- 
culty that they got Sallie up the long stairs; 
but as they opened the door and laid her on 
the old lounge placed directly beside the win- 
dow the little sufferer gave a long sigh of 
delight. 




Katie f 


“Oh, Katie,” she whispered, squeezing the 
other’s hand, “ it ’s a golden palace.” 

Katie looked up and nodded. 

Aunt Abby Ann heard the words, and 
laughed grimly to herself as she pulled out the 
bare table, and set on it the bread and tea for 
supper. 

“ If they take any comfort in it, let ’em,” she 
said to herself ; but her mood softened as she 
saw Sallie’s thin little face with such a con- 
tented smile on it. The child lay back on her 
lounge and looked out of the window. Two 
tall trees, a maple and a willow, towered up 
over a neighboring cottage, waving in the cool 
autumn breeze. The rays of the setting sun 
turned into gold the mass of gorgeous yellow 
leaves, and the reflection filled the room with 
the golden light. 

“ See them ! see them ! ” cried Sallie ; “ see 
them bend their heads ! See the green tree 
with the little, long leaves ! They say, ‘ We ’re 
glad to see you, glad to see you, Katie and 
Sallie.’ ” She nodded her head gravely at them, 
and an extra gust of wind blew the graceful 
willow almost down to the window. Sallie 


33 


A Daughter of the King. 

fairly clapped her hands. “ I sha’n’t be lone- 
some now when you 're out, Katie,” she said ; 
** they ’ll keep me company.” 

They talked often now of the new play. One 
day, while they were busily at work on the 
paper flowers (try as she would, Sallie could 
not make as many in a day as she used to — 
the wires were so heavy), Sallie said, — 

“ Hand me some red paper for the jacks, 
Katie ; it ’s in the big book.” 

Katie took the old, leather- covered family 
Bible, that had escaped, chiefly through its 
battered and mildewed condition, the fate of 
being sold at a pawn-broker’s, — and took out 
the sheet of red paper. She gave a little 
scream. 

“ Why, Sallie, here it is ! here ’s the very 
book they read about the daughter of the King 
in, the other day. There ! read it,” and she 
pointed to the words, “ She shall be brought 
unto the King in raiment of needle-work.” 

“ We might have known it would be in there, 
— that ’s the book that tells about God, and He 
was the King, wasn’t He?” asked Sallie. 
“ We Ve been foolish, we might have thought 
3 




KatiCf 


of it before/* The two cuddled close together, 
forgetting the flowers, as they spelled out labori- 
ously the long words : — . 

“ The daughter of Tyre shall be there with a 
gift/’ 

“ The King’s daughter is all glorious within : 
her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be 
brought unto the King in raiment of needle- 
work: the virgins, her companions that follow 
her, shall be brought unto thee. With gladness 
and rejoicing shall they be brought; they shall 
enter into the King’s palace.” 

The ** King’s daughter,” that was plain ; but 
who was “ the daughter of Tyre? ” 

Sallie sighed softly. “ That must be me,” 
she said ; “I’m always tired. I think that ’s 
me; but what is the gift?” 

“ That was what we were to do. Miss Win- 
throp said,” Katie explained briefly ; “ whatever 
we did ‘ in His name,’ would be a gift to 
Him.” 

“ * All glorious within ; her clothing is all 
wrought gold,* — ours is n’t, is it, Katie? ” Sallie 
said, laughing. “ Oh, would n’t you like to have 
a dress all gold, and soft furs to wear around 


A Daughter of the King. 3$ 

your neck ? See here ! she went on, reading 
from the book. 

** * Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and 
incline thine ear ; forget also thine own people 
and thy father’s house.’ Why, Katie, that 's 
what you Ve done ! You are a daughter of 
the King especially ; it all says so. What are 
you thinking about?” for Katie was unusually 
still. 

“ The gift ; she said if we gave to anybody 
poor and sick it was like giving to Him.” 

Sallie dropped the heavy book, and looked 
up at the yellow maple ; she got tired so quickly, 
as she said. Her face grew very thoughtful, 
2nci the dark lines grown blacker lately under 
her eyes were clearly pencilled. 

** Would you really like a dress with gold in 
it?” Katie asked, wistfully. Sallie had seemed 
so indifferent lately that any wish of this sort 
was grasped eagerly by her little mother. 

She nodded vaguely. 

“ Maybe I ’ll have it when I go to the King’s 
palace,” she said. ** Katie, you know what we 
were talking about the other day? well, I think 
I sha’n’t be here very long — ” 


36 


Katie, 


But Katie interrupted her with a wild cry: 
“Don’t, don’t! it hurts! Where shall I go? 
what shall I do without you ? ” 

Sallie patted the tangled mass of golden hair 
before her. 

“ Your hair is like what is said about the 
clothing : it is wrought gold ; Katie, stop ! 
would you miss me so much? Don’t cry so.” 
Suddenly an excited light shone in her eyes. 
“ Katie, I ’ve thought what to do. Stop, Katie ! 
I tell you I ’ve thought what to do ‘ in His 
name.’ ” 

“ What is it ! ” Katie asked, still sobbing. 

“ I can’t tell you now ; but if you ’ll help me 
sell all the flowers I can make, I think I can do 
something splendid.” 

“ I wish you could think of something for me 
to do, too,” Katie said, with full confidence in 
the power of her companion. 

If self-denial was a part of the task, it was a 
shame that she could not have realized how 
nobly she was working “ in His name,” for, out 
of her love for the little cripple, she bravely 
took the basket of paper flowers every day, and 
did her best to sell them, in spite of the shyness 


A Daughter of the King, 37 

that made her dread to accost a stranger, and 
the innate delicacy and pride that made her 
ashamed to go on the street looking such a 
scare-crow in the old, faded, shrunken clothes. 
At the store where they regularly bought the 
flowers it was not so bad ; but nothing but the 
love of Sallie ever gave her courage to enter 
the others, or ask passers-by to purchase. 
While she toiled in this way Sallie at home 
worked with feverish haste, till exhausted she 
would lie back on the lounge and watch the 
trees, talking to them as to human beings. To 
them she confided the hard secret whose realiza- 
tion was beginning to be too much to be hidden 
in the little breast. 

“ I don’t think I ’ll see you all green in the 
spring,” she said, as the yellow leaves tossed in 
the golden sun ; “ the pain in my back is so 
bad ; but if I can only find Katie’s mother for 
her I sha’ n’t mind the rest. Poor Katie ; she ’d 
be so lonesome without me all day, and I ’m 
afraid Aunt Abby Ann would send her to the 
^sylum.” 

To them she confided her plan. A little 
clasp such as babies wear had fastened Katie’s 


dress when they found her, years ago. On it 
were the letters “ K. Le R.” She and Katie had 
puzzled over them many times, and her mother 
had depended on them to identify the child; 
but notwithstanding, all search for her parents 
had been in vain. What the last name was, they 
could only conjecture ; Katie could remember 
nothing but the first. Now, on the inner petal 
of every rose, where it could be seen by a close 
observer, but did not hurt the flower, Sallie, 
with painstaking toil, traced these letters, and 
beneath them the name of the street on which 
she lived. They had to be written very dis- 
tinctly, but much work on the flowers had made 
Sallie’s touch delicate, and if one took the 
trouble to look into the rose he could not fail 
to read its message. 

** There ! ” she exclaimed, triumphantly, as a 
bunch of the flowers was prepared ; ** if Katie’s 
mother should happen to see that, she ’ll take 
the trouble to find out what it means, won’t 
she?” and the little girl looked up at the tall 
trees confidently. 

Stirred by a big breeze, the maple shook its 
thousand yellow leaves in a maddening whirl 


A Daughter of the King. 39 

above the window that sent them floating down 
like a shower of gold. 

“You do know; you are laughing about it, 
are n’t you? ’’ cried the child, stretching out her 
arms. “ Oh, it must be nice to be up there. 
But I must go to work ; I must do lots of these, 
so they ’ll go out everywhere.” 

But the tired hands refused to do much more 
work; the heavy eyes closed in spite of her 
determination, and the ache in the poor little 
back became so constant, that at last the papers 
were too heavy a load to bear, and nothing re- 
mained but to lie and watch the trees and weave 
long fantastic stories of a king’s palace between 
the intervals of pain. She questioned Katie 
every day closely as to who had bought the 
flowers, and her wonderful memory could have 
told her weeks after, just what looking people 
had the messages within their grasp. It was 
strange that Katie did not notice it, but the 
child’s mind was occupied with other things 
just now. The vague fear of losing Sallie was 
ever with her ; she felt that all her energies 
must be devoted to her, and it was with mingled 
pleasure and pain that she resolved that what- 


40 Katie, 

ever she did * in His name ’ should be done for 
the other daughter of the King. 

“ If I could only give her a clothing wrought 
with gold,” she sighed, and one night when 
Aunt Abby Ann was doing some extra work, 
a bit of nice embroidery that had been ordered, 
Katie, attracted by the skeins of golden floss, 
drew near, and asked timidly what those would 
cost. 

“ Twenty-five or thirty cents,” Aunt Abby 
Ann answered. 

Katie sighed ; it might just as well have been 
twenty-five or thirty dollars. 

“Why?” the woman asked, not unkindly; 
“ do you want some? If there’s any left you 
can have it.” 

Katie watched the work with breathless eager- 
ness. She drew a long breath at every needle- 
ful that Aunt Abby Ann drew out, and by the 
time the work was finished her habit of keen 
observation cultivated on Sallie’s behalf had 
taught her just the manner of working. Quite 
a large bunch of the silk was left. Katie re- 
ceived it joyfully; the color came into her 
cheeks, and Aunt Abby Ann realized what a 


A Daughter of the King, 41 

pretty child easier circumstances would have 
made. The first step in her cherished plan hav- 
ing been taken, Katie bravely essayed another. 

** How much cloth would it take to make a 
garment?” she asked. 

Aunt Abby Ann paused in the midst of fold- 
ing up her work. 

** Depends who it 's for and what kind,” she 
said, briefly. 

‘‘For Sallie, or — me,” Katie stammered; 
she did so want to keep her plan a secret from 
Aunt Abby Ann’s practical comments. 

“ Heaven’s sake, child ! ” the hard-working 
woman cried, “ what ’s in your head now? You 
need n’t set your mind on anything new this 
winter ; Sallie ’s got enough to keep her warm, 
as long as she lies abed, and you ’ll have to 
make your old coat go ; it ’s all I can do now, 
after this moving, to pay the rent and get food 
for us ; how they expect a woman to live on a 
dollar a day I don’t see ; I ’d like them that 
gets rich on our work to try it awhile. You ’ve 
got enough to keep warm, have n’t you ? ” she 
asked, kindly, for the child’s sober face could 
not fail to touch her a little. 


42 


Katie y 


** Yes, if I run,” Katie said, in a matter-of-fact 
tone. ** It 's only when you walk slow that the 
cold bites, generally.” 

“What sort of a garment did you mean?” 
Aunt Abby Ann pursued, curiously. 

“A — a — skirt,” Katie said, desperately. 
She had not really much idea what a “ gar- 
ment” was. 

“ If you get cotton it would take about a yard 
and a half, and would cost fifteen cents, per- 
haps ; flannel would be more.” 

Katie’s face brightened. She had saved with 
much self-denial just sixteen cents out of the 
money that Sallie insisted she should take from 
the profits of the flowers, one cent in every five ; 
Katie would take no more than that. She went 
to bed with a happy heart, and the next day, 
after disposing of the regular bunch of roses, 
she went into a small thread and needle store, 
and got her cotton cloth. She must next get it 
into the house without Sallie’s seeing it. Then 
how could she ever make it ? She had mended 
enough, poor child, but original material rarely 
came to her hands. Before she reached the 
house she slipped off her shawl, took the cloth 


A Daughter of the King. 


45 


out of its wrapping, folded it over her shoulders, 
and the shawl over it; then she walked into 
the room, and after stopping a moment to speak 
to Sallie, hid it in the drawer of an old bureau 
in the farther room. She fashioned the skirt 
that night after Aunt Abby Ann had gone and 
Sallie had been carefully put to bed, — she 
went very early, now ; the hard old mattress and 
the thin blankets felt so good to the little frame 
that seemed to become weaker every day. 
Katie looked very sober as she cut the cloth 
and sewed it up as nearly as possible like an 
old skirt of Sallie’s. Sallie had not even spoken 
of the princesses or the King that day, and just 
before going to bed she had made such a 
strange remark : - 

“ They beckon,” she told Katie ; ” I mean the 
trees ; I think that long one,” pointing to the 
willow just outlined in the dusk, ‘‘ comes a little 
nearer every day.” 

Her eyes were very bright and her cheeks 
flushed. Aunt Abby Ann had asked her how 
she felt, very kindly, that night, and muttered 
something about the doctor as she went out. 
Katie worked with a heavy heart, but her fingers 


44 


Katie f 


flew ; she was anxious to get to the gold. All 
the time her mind was on the words: Her 

clothing is of wrought gold ; she shall be 
brought to the King in raiment of needle- 
work.” If she could only finish it by Christmas, 
how pleased Sallie would be; it would make 
the play seem so real, and Sallie did so love to 
pretend — it was all that made her forget the 
pain. Work as she might, however, she could 
not “get to the gold” to-night; it must wait 
for another time, and for the next few days 
Sallie seemed brighter. All the morning she 
worked at the flowers, while Katie did up the 
work ; ” then when the child had gone out to 
sell them, Sallie lay back and rested, thinking, 
thinking, thinking. First, she thought of Katie 
— how good and kind to her she always was ; 
“ my little mother ” she called the child who 
had grown up with her. If the flowers would 
only bring Katie’s mother; if the King, who, 
she had been told, knew everything, knew how 
hard she had tried to do something for Him 
through one of His children, surely he would 
let the flowers go to the right one. It was the 
best she could do — almost helpless on the old 


A Daughter of the King. 


45 


lounge; poor as any one could be who had just 
enough to keep from being cold and hungry ; 
perhaps there were some worse off — but she 
could n’t reach them, and besides, this seemed 
the only thing she would have time to do ; for 
this active, mature little mind had so outgrown 
the misshapen body that she realized with a 
woman’s perception, at last, the fact, no longer 
a bitter one, that she would not be there much 
longer. We say no longer a bitter truth, for, 
strange as it may seem, whether simply through 
a merciful physical dulling of the sense of 
fear, or through an utter weariness and longing 
to be rid of the pain. Princess Sara looked 
forward to the going away only with a feeling 
of wonder. The thought of Katie, indeed, 
brought grief; but it was on Katie’s account; 
she would be so lonesome, and maybe Aunt 
Abby Ann would send her to the asylum, — 
poor, shy little Katie ; yes, it would be harder 
for her. If only the King would let her find 
Katie’s mother, then she would herself feel that 
she was really His daughter, and that He had 
accepted the work begun “ in His name.” She 
looked out of the window up into the clear, blue 


46 


Katie j 


sky. It was winter now, and the gorgeous 
maple had lost its shining dress; but some of 
the little leaves still clung to the willow, and 
even the bare branches tossed and bent their 
lofty heads with an indescribably restful motion. 

“They rock like a cradle,” Sallie thought; 
“ how I 'd like to be in their arms ! ” And 
soothed by the willowy waving, she fell asleep, 
and did not wake till Katie came. Then she 
looked up brightly. 

“ How do you do, princess? ” she said, with a 
smile. “ Was the walk pleasant to-day? Did 
you find many people to give the flowers to ? ” 
“Yes, they’re all gone,” Katie answered, 
showing the empty basket; “ and I heard some 
news ; they say the King is coming. Christmas 
will be here in three weeks.” 

“ We must get the palace ready,” Sallie re- 
marked ; “ the marble floors are in bad shape, 
and we need new couches.” 

Katie sat down on the floor, and laid her head 
beside Sallie ; the little wasted hand buried it- 
self in the yellow, fluffy hair, and Sallie said : — 
“ What a lot of gold you ’ve got, princess ! 
It ’s your only fortune, but they can’t take it 


47 


A Daughter of the King. 

from you. Tell me, Katie," she said, more seri- 
ously, ** have you ever seen anybody you 
thought might belong to you ? " 

Katie shook her head. ** I Ve seen lots I 
hoped might, — ladies with velvet clothes and 
soft furs who go along with little children and 
call them ‘ my dear.’ ” 

The desire that persistently showed itself in 
this child, brought up in rags, for purple and 
fine linen, seemed to be a birthright. 

“ Katie, I ’m going to tell you something. I 
meant to have kept it a secret ; but I want you 
to know in case I should n’t be — in case I 
should be too sick to tell;’’ she changed the 
words as she caught Katie’s look of distress. 
“I’m going to find your mother;’’ and she 
told of the paper messages that Katie had un- 
consciously sent out. “ Now you know why I 
wanted to know who bought ’em. Has anybody 
lately, that you think might be your mother? ’’ 
Katie shook her head, her lip quivered, and 
the black eyes were full of tears. 

“ I don’t want to find her,’’ she said, trem- 
blingly ; “ I don’t want anybody but you, and 
I won’t leave you ; ’’ and the delicate body was 


48 Katie, 

shaken with sobs from her feet to the crown of 
her golden head. 

I may leave you,” Sallie said quietly. 
“ Listen, Katie, that 's why I did it ; I don’t 
want to leave you all alone all the days, and if 
we can find your mother you won’t miss me 
so much.” 

** I don’t want to,” Katie persisted. 

You ’d like the nice things,” Sallie insinu- 
ated; “just think, Katie, you would n’t have to 
pretend ; you ’d have the soft clothes and good 
things to eat, and warm blankets, and it would 
be like a princess all the time.” 

“ But you — ” Katie stammered ; she could n’t 
realize happiness apart from Sallie, and won- 
dered that Sallie could think it possible. 

“ Did n’t you tell me I was a ‘ Daughter of 
the King ? ’ ” Sallie asked, touching the little 
cross, whose purple ribbon contrasted so queeriy 
with Katie’s old dress. “ You know it says 
in that book that when the daughter went to 
the King she was brought with gladness and 
rejoicing.” 

“ You ’ll see the King first,” Katie said. Then 
realizing what she had admitted, turned crim- 


A Daughter of the King, 49 

son in her effort to stop the tears that hurt 
Sallie. 

** See that big tree,” the latter said, her mind 
wandering from their talk. “ Watch those top 
branches ; see, now, how they bend ; they come 
almost down here, then they draw back as if 
they laughed and said, ‘ You can’t touch us yet; 
don’t you wish you could?’ See how near 
they come ; they toss all up together as if they 
were having such a gay time and wanted me to 
come. They come nearer and nearer, and some 
day I think they ’ll put their arms right round 
me and catch me up ; they are the ’tendants in 
the palace, Katie, and see, they are beginning 
to light the lamps.” 


4 


CHAPTER IV. 


FEW days after this Sallie became so 
weak that Aunt Abby Ann called a 
doctor, and stayed at home herself. He was a 
busy man, and much practice among the poor 
had accustomed him to all kinds of suffering. 
Katie dared not stay in the room. She looked 
upon him as the arbiter of Sallie’s fate, and hid 
away in dread; but as she went into the hall 
she heard him say to Aunt Abby Ann : — 

** I don’t say but that she will recover if she 
can have plenty of nourishing food and constant 
stimulants, — wine and brandy, you know.” 

Aunt Abby Ann laughed grimly. “ I don’t 
see where they ’re coming from,” she said ,• “ it 's 
all I can do to get bread and broth.” 

Katie, an unwilling listener on the other side 
of the wall, felt that her heart would break. 
Wine and proper food might save Sallie’s life, 
and she could not have them. She buried her 


A Daughter of the King. 51 

head in the bedclothes, and clenched her little 
hands ; hot tears of angry grief burnt her eyes. 

She shall have it,’' the child cried to her- 
self ; “ I '11 do something ; I '11 do anything in 
the world to get Sallie what she wants.” 

A feeling of impotence succeeded her burst 
of anger. A hundred schemes came to her 
mind, but all seemed equally futile. At last 
she thought, — 

“ Christmas will be here soon ; I ’ll find those 
girls and tell them about Sallie, and if they 
really want to do something ‘in His name,’ 
they ’ll be glad to help her, I know.’ 

She felt partly comforted ; but the sting was 
there. The doctor’s words had confirmed the 
haunting fear, and in the depths of her heart 
she felt that Sallie would not long need her 
care. 

After this a little change appeared in the 
quiet household. Aunt Abby Ann spent as 
much of her time at home as she could. Sallie 
no longer made the paper flowers, and Katie 
did not go out as much as formerly. Every 
moment she could spare from Sallie’s couch 
she spent hard at work on the skirt; and such a 


52 


Katie, 


queer piece of handiwork as the unaccustomed 
fingers made of it ! Guided only by her desire 
to make it “ wrought with gold,” and by the 
glimpse she had had of Aunt Abby Ann’s 
method of working, Katie laid several strands 
of the golden floss along the hem of the gar- 
ment, and proceeded to hold them in place by 
couching them with single threads. At first 
she attempted fantastic curls and loops; but 
finding that her silk would not last, she econo- 
mized by following a straight line along the 
bottom. Even then she found that the material 
was giving out, — everything worked against 
this poor “ Daughter of the King; ” but just as 
she despairingly selected the last thread of silk 
(the pattern ” was only half completed) a 
bright idea came to her from the tangle of gold 
hanging over her eyes : “ Sallie always calls my 
hair gold ; I ’ll work with that.” She took the 
scissors, and carefully selecting the longest 
locks, cut as close to her head as possible, and 
soon a mass of the shining stuff lay before her. 
It was so fine and brittle that Katie could 
scarcely use it ; it would break off in the needle, 
and the work was so slow that she despaired of 


A Daughter of the King. 53 

finishing it by Christmas ; but love works 
miracles, and a day or two before that time the 
quaint little skirt, fashioned with so much toil, 
and bearing traces of tears in sundry grimy 
stitches, w^as laid carefully away, gay with its 
glittering border of gold that had been pur- 
chased at so high a price. 

With the exception of three or four bunches, 
the last of the flowers had been sold; these 
Katie had carefully reserved ; they were her last 
resort, the means whereby she hoped to gain 
the sympathy and the more tangible help that 
would serve to prolong Sallie’s life. All the 
pennies that the flowers had brought thus far 
had gone only too quickly for the broth and 
medicine that both Katie and Aunt Abby Ann 
had tacitly decided Sallie should have, if they 
went without food themselves. The doctor 
came frequently, giving his services out of his 
busy life, and furnishing several little comforts 
that otherwise would have been lacking ; but in 
spite of this the weary little body on the couch 
grew thinner every day ; the hands, once so 
diligent, became quieter and quieter, and 
nothing seemed like Sallie of old, save the busy 


54 


Katie, 


brain and bright eyes. Her faith that Katie’s 
mother would come seemed to increase daily ; 
Auj^t Abby Ann, to whom it had been confided, 
dared not disturb the confidence in what to her 
was such a vain effort, and as the days went on 
it became evident that the longing to see the 
accomplishment of her work did much to keep 
alive this ** Daughter of the King.” 

It was Christmas eve, and very cold. Katie 
shivered as she put a worn old coat over her 
thin dress, and tried vainly to keep the ragged 
buttonholes fastened about the buttons. In her 
tiny bare hands (the money that would have 
bought mittens had gone for Sallie long ago) 
she took the last bunches of the gay paper 
roses, with their precious messages buried in 
their unfeeling hearts, and with a good-by kiss 
to Sallie, dozing in the twilight, set off coura- 
geously on her mission. She had found out that 
the mission that she attended those two Sun- 
days was to have its Christmas festival that 
night, at the big church two miles across the 
city. In spite of the fact that much of her life 
had had to be passed on the streets, she had 
never overcome her dread of dark and loneli- 


A Daughter of the King. 


55 


ness ; but now she plunged bravely into the 
hurrying crowd, in the fast gathering dusk. 
The child was a striking figure at any time ; the 
exquisite grace of every motion and the golden 
veil of hair standing out raggedly from its recent 
ruthless clipping under the confines of the old 
gray hood drawn tightly over her head, attracted 
the gaze of many passers-by. The wind blew 
her over the icy pavement; it threatened to 
tear the delicate flowers from her painful grasp ; 
it blew the tangle of hair into her eyes, and 
made her white cheeks rosy with its stinging 
blows. It seemed to her that the way had 
never been so long or cold before. At last she 
heard the joyous carols ringing out from the 
chimes of the church tower; now the many- 
colored lights streamed from the church win- 
dows ; warm and welcome they looked to the 
little child without. A moment more, and she 
stood inside the porch ; and as the partial warmth 
revived the half-frozen limbs, a great wave of 
shyness swept over her, and she realized all at 
once how hard an undertaking was hers. In 
the first place, would those girls be there? and 
where could she find them in that vast place that 


56 


Katie y 


seemed to swallow up every child that passed 
through its doors? If only she might see Miss 
Winthrop, or even the girl that had first intro- 
duced her. Suppose Miss Winthrop had died 
and that other woman was there. In spite of 
her regal stateliness, the woman had exerted a 
strange fascination over Katie, and along with 
her fear went a corresponding longing to see 
once more the tall figure that looked so like a 
princess, and had such sorrowful eyes. 

A man standing near the inner door came to 
Katie. 

“ Would you like to go in ? ” he asked. “ It ’s 
the children’s service.” 

Katie’s heart fluttered in her throat and 
choked her when she tried to answer yes; but 
her grateful face was enough, and the usher 
kindly opened the door and pointed to a vacant 
seat near by. 

A brisk, middle-aged woman stepped forward 
and looked at Katie with disapprobation. 

“ What class does she belong to ? ” she asked 
the usher in an audible undertone. “ I don’t 
recognize her, — and she mustn’t have those 
ridiculous paper flowers in her hand, either; 


A Daughter of the King. 57 

Let me have your flowers, little girl,” she said, 
stretching out her hand to take the innocent 
papers, “ and I ’ll take care of them for you.” 

Katie trembled from head to foot. Despair 
lent her voice, and she said, piteously, — 

“ Oh, no, ma’am ! I want ’em for something 
special ; please don’t take ’em.” The big black 
eyes were full of terror. 

“ Very well, then, child,” the woman said ; 
** only keep them down behind the pew.” 
Then she added to herself, “ Who can she be ? 
I ’ve surely seen somebody who looks like her.” 

Thus rebuffed, Katie slipped into the first 
vacant pew, and tried to look about her. She 
might as well have been miles away, she could 
see so little ; and after trying to stop the nervous 
trembling that the cold and the rebuke had pro- 
duced, she slipped out of the seat and wandered 
down the long aisle, her ragged shoes scuffling 
over the rich carpet, till she came to a pew 
empty among a lot occupied by children. 


$3 


Kaiie^ 


CHAPTER V. 

" TD’RAPS if I sit here I can see ’em,” she 
thought, and crept in, carefully closing 
the door, and climbing upon the seat. Her 
head, with its gray woollen covering surrounded 
by the halo of glistening hair, came just above 
the back of the seat. Her black eyes gazed out 
between the golden mass above and the paper 
roses below with an anxious, wistful expression. 
Her cold, red hands clasped the bunch of flowers, 
and her feet swung in their clumsy covering be- 
low, — such a queer little figure, upon whom in 
her cheerless home so much depended ! A buzz 
went on around her; the big tree, frosty with 
pop-corn, and bright with candles, and heavy 
with gifts, was the theme of conversation among 
the children. 

“What do you s’pose you’ll get?” Katie 
heard one after another say, and the exclama- 
tions of delight, as new objects of beauty were 


A Daughter of the King, 59 

discovered, made a chorus all around. But not 
one did she see that she knew, — not one of the 
girls, not even Miss Winthrop nor the tall lady. 
What should she do? Just then a man stopped 
at the pew. 

“ You ’ll have to move out of here, little girl,” 
he said ; ‘‘ this seat is reserved for a class.” 

Katie rose in fright, and hurrying out stumbled 
over a high kneeling-stool, that tipped with a 
great noise. The children in front giggled. 

** Look at the flowers,” she heard one say ; 
‘*why don’t she put ’em in her hood?” 

** Go around the corner,” the man said, not 
unkindly, “ and you can hear and see just as 
well.” 

Poor Katie, cut to the quick of her sensitive 
soul by the reference to her hated hood, blushed 
crimson. The tears scalded her eyes, and it 
seemed to her that every child she passed was 
laughing at her. The pitiful little figure crept 
up the long aisle with a wild desire to run out 
— away, anywhere, where she might find one 
friendly voice; but the thought of Sallie en- 
couraged her, and turning the corner, she 
crawled into a seat adjoining the one she had 


6o 


Katie, 


left, wishing with all her heart that the floor 
would open and swallow her up. At last she 
saw something that made her heart leap ; di- 
rectly in front, so that she could both see and 
hear them, were the very girls she had met two 
months ago ; only, and Katie’s heart fell again, 
neither of the ladies nor her girl friend was 
there. Could she have the courage to tell those 
girls about Sallie? They had seemed so care- 
less of her those two days she had been one 
of them. She would listen, — yes, they were 
comparing notes. What had they done? One 
had saved all her five-cent pieces, and was going 
to give them to the fund to-night, — it was for 
the benefit of the schools in China; three 
laughingly found their aims had been the same : 
they had saved pennies which were to go for 
the education of the child-widows in India, — 
an object that had strongly appealed to their 
imaginations ; one had not used a single word 
that bordered on the profane, and had done her 
best to prevent it in those around her; one had 
gone without candy, and had sent the money 
thus saved to the Orphan Asylum (Katie shud- 
dered) ; two had joined forces and sewed for 


A Daughter of the King. 6i 

the Indian Mission every half-holiday ; and one, 
the smallest, whose thin white face showed the 
inevitable result of too early toil in the mills, 
could not be prevailed upon to tell what she 
had accomplished. 

** I saved some money,” she said, at last. 

“ What did you do with it? ” the others asked. 

“ Nothing,” the child answered, obstinately. 

** I don’t believe you saved it at all,” one scof- 
fingly said. 

“Yes, she has, — I see it; it's a bill, too,” 
another chimed in. 

The child, one of whose blue eyes looked 
directly toward the other, turned upon the in- 
formant fiercely : — 

“ You don’t know how much it is, and I 
sha’n’t tell.” 

“Why not? What will you do with it, — 
give it to the ‘ China fund '? ” 

“No, I sha’n’t; it’s too far off; how do I 
know it’ll ever get there? ” the young cynic re- 
plied, half nodding, and shutting the straight 
eye cunningly, with grotesque effect. 

Katie listened despairingly; how could she 
ever ask those sister donors to divert their gifts 


62 Katie, 

from their ambitious channels to the humble 
needs of poor little Sallie? To them, so com- 
monplace an appeal would have small chance 
beside the great charities to which their offer- 
ings were to be devoted. “ P'raps somebody ’ll 
buy the flowers, if nothing else,” Katie thought, 
trying to fan her fainting courage. 

But hark ! the clergyman, dressed in spotless 
linen, had come in and begun to address the 
children, — the same one whom once before she 
had heard. Katie knew him by his heavy black 
whiskers and benevolent smile. He told the 
Christmas story of the coming of the King, — 
how once coming as a baby, as we all come into 
the world. He had so glorified His kingly life 
that His birthday was never passed by, but was 
celebrated, especially by the children whom He 
so dearly loved. He referred to the children’s 
gift to the little children in China ; spoke of the 
value in God’s sight of any offering that was 
destined to give knowledge of Him, and con- 
gratulated the children that the sum of money 
on this occasion was the largest missionary fund 
ever sent out by any of the young people con- 
nected with this church. 


A Daughter of the King. 6| 

The children sang some carols, the presents 
were given out. Katie felt that the time to go 
was fast approaching. Indeed, the benediction 
was pronounced, and the children were starting, 
before she had quite resolved what to do. The 
girls were passing by her, and the opportunity 
with them ; one of them recognized and nodded 
to her. She put out her hand beseechingly. 

“ Oh, please ! ” she said ; “ you are a ‘ Daughter 
of the King,’ are n’t you ? ” and she touched her 
silver cross. 

“Yes,” said the other, with a bright smile; 
“ here ’s mine, ’ and she pulled it out of her 
dress. “ Why ? ” 

“ ’Cos — ’cos there ’s one, at least there ’s one 
without the cross, very sick at home, and she 
needs wine and things that the people — we — 
are too poor to get; I thought maybe if the 
other ‘ Daughters of the King ’ knew about it 
they’d be glad to help.” 

The girl shook her head slowly. 

“ I ’ve given away all my money,” she said ; 
“ I ’m sorry. Is n’t there somebody else you 
can go to ? ” 

** I don’t know,” Katie said, sorrowfully. I 


64 


Katie f 


thought maybe the * Daughters of the King * 
would be glad to help one of their own kind. 
Could you? ” she said, with a great effort, turn- 
ing to another who stood listening. 

“ You ’ll have to go to the city missionary, 
I ’m ’fraid,” this one said ; “ I ’ve spent all my 
money, or I ’d give something. If Miss Win- 
throp was n’t too sick she ’d help,” she added, 
seeing the disappointment in Katie’s face ; “ but 
she is n’t out yet. Come, Nell, you won’t get 
your stocking hung to-night,” and with a nod 
they hurried off. 

Katie lingered a moment irresolutely. The 
pleasant odor of the pines, the genial warmth of 
the fires, the brilliant lights, and the soft, sweet 
music were almost too much for the sensitive 
little creature. The bells pealed out a merry 
carol overhead, the groups of happy people 
moved about, talking in happy voices. Katie, 
alone in the big pew, looked about her, and 
then down at the poor paper roses tumbled 
against her faithful breast. Even now she saw 
Sallie’s thin hands working at the unruly petals ; 
even now she heard the weak voice saying: “ If 
they ’ll only bring your mother, Katie, and I 


A Daughter of the King. 65 

know they will." Christmas had come, they 
hadn’t brought her mother, and there seemed 
nobody in the wide world willing to contribute 
out of abundance to Sallie’s needs. Suppose 
Sallie should not be there when she got back ; 
suppose the princess should have been carried 
to the King, what would she, Katie, do ? A 
great big sob, too big to keep to herself, burst 
unconsciously from her lips. 

A sweet-faced lady with white hair, standing 
near, turned quickly at the sound. She saw a tiny 
figure in a gray hood and ragged cloak standing 
at a pew door, — a tiny, shivering child whose 
little golden head was laid down on the arm of 
the seat in the attitude of complete despair. 

"What is the trouble, dear?” she asked, 
going swiftly to the child and stooping beside 
her. 

Katie lifted her head, pushed back her hair, 
and gazed at the speaker, her black eyes hard 
and bright with unshed tears. 

"Where have I seen a face like that?” the 
woman instantly thought. 

"You see, the girls that were here were 
‘ Daughters of the King,’ and I was one of ’em, 


5 


66 


Katie y 


and I thought if I told ’em about Sallie they ’d 
be glad to help ‘ in His name,’ you know; but 
they have already given all their money away; 
I s’pose they are poor, too ; but — Sallie, oh, 
Sallie ! ” and at the pitying look and sympa- 
thetic touch Katie broke down entirely, and 
wiped her eyes on the back of her chafed hands, 
trying vainly not to dampen the flowers. 

“What about Sallie? Who is she?” 

Once more Katie told her story, ending with 
the pathetic plea : — 

“ Don’t you think somebody would be willing 
to help her? She’s a ‘ Daughter of the King,’ 
too.” 

“ Dear child, yes,” the good woman an- 
swered. “ Of all nights in the year that help 
should be asked in vain, * in His name ’ 1 ” 

“ I ’ve got the flowers to sell,” Katie cried, 
eagerly, holding up the wilted collection ; “ but 
they don’t look pretty now.” 

“Nevermind. Did Sallie make them? ” the 
lady asked, kindly ; she was strangely drawn to 
this waif, apart from her pathetic appeal. 

“You can let me have these to-night; I’ll 
pay you well for them ; there ’s much work and 


A Daughter of the King. 67 

good work, too, in them ; and to-morrow we ’ll 
see what we can do for little Sallie.” 

Then she took the child by the hand and led 
her out of the church. Close behind them 
walked the ^‘Daughter of the King” who had 
refused to tell the others about her gift. Linger- 
ing, she had heard Katie’s appeal, and seen her 
grief, and its dissipation at the words of the 
friendly woman. Out in the porch they paused ; 
the child crept up to Katie, and pulled her 
coat shyly, fixing her eye upon her. Katie 
looked a little embarrassed ; she could n’t 
tell whether the child was looking at her or 
not. At the other’s smile, however, her doubt 
vanished. 

“Did you say she was sick?” the stranger 
asked. 

Katie nodded. 

“ And poor? ” 

Katie nodded more vigorously. 

The child’s benevolent smile was sadly at 
odds with the mismatched blue eyes. 

“ Give her this, ‘ in His name,’ ” she said, 
showing her little silver cross, and putting a 
crisp bill in Katie’s hand. Then she turned 


68 Katie ^ 

and fled before Katie could say another 
word. 

The lady, who had watched the little incident 
with a swelling heart, put Katie on a homeward- 
bound car, with her fare in one hand and in the 
other the liberal emolument for the flowers, the 
first installment of that which was, please God, 
to bring little Sallie to life and health again. 
The lady stepped back to the church. Her 
eyes were yet moist at the unselfish devotion of 
the ** Daughter of the King ; " but there was a 
smile on her face as she looked at the tissue 
frauds in her hand. ‘‘They look colder even 
than the real ones at this time of year,” she 
thought. “ Why, Mrs. LeRoy, how you startled 
me ! That *s the very face, — how like they are ! ’ 
This she added to herself, as a tall, regal woman, 
in a black clinging gown, touched her arm 
suddenly. ‘‘ What is it, can I do anything for 
you?” she asked, disturbed at the changed ex- 
pression of the cold, calm face that she had 
rarely seen moved in years of intimate ac- 
quaintance. 

“ Not much, thanks,” the other said, and 
laughed, as if half ashamed. “ I have a foolish 


A Daughter of the King. 69 

fancy ; won’t you tell me the name of that child 
you were speaking to? Her face was striking,’* 
she hesitated — “I ’ve seen her before.” 

“I really don’t know her name; she only 
told me where she lived, she was so wrapt up in 
a little lame girl dying for want of proper nour- 
ishment, ~ Sallie, she called her.” 

“ It must be the same one,” Mrs. Le Roy 
answered ; “ I saw her once when I took Miss 
Winthrop’s class in the mission. She was very 
much interested in the child, and asked me so 
many questions about her that I was ashamed 
to confess I had made no inquiries. She is a 
strange-looking little girl,” she said, reverting 
to Katie. “Where did you say she lived?” 
Then without waiting for an answer, “ She 
looked almost too delicate and finely formed to 
be one of the mission children.” 

It was evident Mrs. Le Roy felt an interest on 
her own account, as well as Miss Winthrop’s. 
The elder lady pressed her friend’s hand with 
the privilege born of old acquaintance. 

“ My dear, here is a chance for you to help 
some one ; the case needs investigating, at least ; 
it may prove worthy, and it is Christmas-tide — 


70 


Katie, 


was there ever a better time to do good? Here, 
take these, they ’ll serve to remind you of the 
child ; ” and she put the roses, half in jest, into 
her friend’s unwilling hand. The woman’s dark 
eyes grew cold. 

“I never keep festivals, you know; I only 
strayed here to-night; Christmas is nothing to 
me. It’s not alone the poor and sick who 
suffer.” 

Her face was as frosty as the air without. 
She put up her hand to fasten her furs about 
her throat, and a tiny Maltese cross that gleamed 
like silver escaped from its hiding-place in her 
dress. 

“ Why, are you a ‘ Daughter of the King ’ ? ” 
the other asked, with surprise ; that poor 
little child was one, and made her plea ‘ in His 
name.’ ” 

Mrs. Le Roy’s lips trembled. 

*‘That cross — it was my baby’s,” she said. 
** Good-night; ” and putting up her hand as if to 
ward off sympathy or question, she hurried 
down the step and into her carriage. 


A Daughter of the King, 


71 


CHAPTER V. 

HRISTMAS morning dawned bright and 



clear. In the dainty boudoir of a great 
city mansion, surrounded by luxurious appoint- 
ments, sat a tall, pale woman, wrapt in the long 
black garments that were in truth the outward 
expression of the spirit of heaviness that en- 
veloped her. Her life had been strange, — a 
living death, she would have told you. Nine 
years before a happy young wife and mother, 
she had lost, in one terrible day, both the hus- 
band and baby that made all her pride and 
happiness. When they told her her husband 
had died in the vain effort to rescue their baby 
from his burning home, she was like a mad 
creature, and begged piteously to die herself. 
As no trace of the child was to be found, she 
for a long time refused to believe in its death ; 
but as it was known to have been in an upper 
room at the time of the fire, gradually she felt 


72 


Katie. 


the impossibility of its escape from the father's 
fate, and relinquished her forlorn hope ; not in 
resignation, but in an enforced submission, bitter 
and rebellious. From a sunny, winsome girl, 
she became a cold, impassive woman through 
the outbursts of grief and despair that seemed 
to exhaust the sense of feeling, and leave her 
totally indifferent to all around her. Still 
young, rich, and talented, she moved, a regal 
figure, proudly beautiful, like a mechanical 
thing from day to day. Old friends clung to 
her through pity or association, new ones she 
rarely made ; yet many enjoyments might still 
have been hers (there are those independent of 
the happiness that comes solely through love 
of husband or child), and some women in her 
place would have adapted themselves to the 
new life, and found satisfaction and pleasure 
in the means of enjoyment left them. 

Many a young girl envied Katherine Le Roy 
her wealth and position ; many friends longed 
to excite in her the true source of comfort, — 
the power of living and doing for others ; but 
the woman resolutely steeled her heart against 
pleas of this sort. If those girls who envied 


7? 


A Daughter of the King. 

her only knew how gladly she would throw 
aside money, position, — ay, everything that 
makes life easy, — for one touch of her baby’s 
hand. Waiting and longing had almost made 
her mad in the first few years, and she yielded 
at last to friends’ persuasions, and tried to dis- 
tract her mind ; but it seemed indeed as if her 
power to feel had gone, until, one day, some- 
thing had stirred to a tiny spark of life the 
heart she thought was dead. It was such a 
little thing, and the little spark of life hurt so 
much that she tried to quench it and forget 
the cause, but it was too late; the child she 
had seen when she unwillingly supplied her 
friend’s place for one day, had excited an un- 
conscious fascination. Her baby’s eyes had 
gazed into hers with just that wondering ap- 
peal; the golden locks, though darker, recalled 
the tight little curls, like twisted gold, that cov- 
ered her baby’s head. The child seemed just 
the age that hers would have been, too. All 
these things stirred again the old doubts ; sup- 
pose her child had escaped the fire and grown 
up, horrible to think of, in poverty and hard- 
ship ! She had to go over all the old reasons 


74 


KatiCj 


again and again before she could tranquillize 
her mind, so great was the impression made by 
the little girl who had come and gone in her 
life like the flash of a meteor. And now, just 
as the wounded place had healed, she had seen 
her again, this time in distress. All night long 
had Mrs. Le Roy tossed in wakefulness, seeing 
before her heads like cherubs with golden halos ; 
but they all had the same face, the face of the 
“ Daughter of the King.” 

Who was this child that disturbed her so? 
Why must other people’s troubles be thrust 
upon her? had she not enough of her own? God 
forgive her ! — buried in her own sorrow, she 
had forgotten that others might be worse off 
than she. How horrible to think that a life 
could be lost through lack of money, and that 
the child who looked up with her baby’s eyes 
could feel a grief so hard as that. Suppose her 
child had lived and been brought to such a pass. 
It was too dreadful to think of. For once, at 
least, she would try to do for some one what 
she would have had done for her own child. 
It was Christmas day, — a good time to begin ; 
her friend’s words came to her, and she ob- 


75 


A Daughter of the King. 

stinately thought, “ I ’ll not keep on hunting up 
the poor; I hate that r61e, and it’s only for 
this one time, because she looked like my baby, 
oh, my baby ! ” and the mother’s heart again 
glowed, stirred to life by the memory of the 
golden-haired child. Unconsciously she fin- 
gered the little Maltese cross that hung on her 
watch chain. K. Le R. was on it in quaint 
lettering. Her baby often had worn it, and it 
never left her own bosom. Her little Katie, 
— yes, at least to-day she would do one good 
thing in her name, and she started at the recol- 
lection of the child’s cross that she had noticed, 
with the higher watch-word “In His Name.” 

Hastily rising, she ordered several bottles of 
wine, some fruit, and other dainties, put in a 
basket ; then going to a long-closed drawer, she 
took out some little garments yellow with their 
nine years’ seclusion. 

“The lame child may be little and needy,” 
she said to herself, as if apologizing, and I 'm 
doing this for Katie. Now where shall I go?” 
she went on, with a delicate flush on her pale 
cheek that her unusual activity had produced. 
“ Dear, dear, I 've forgotten the address, and 


76 


Katie, 


shall have to go to Mrs. Sidney for it ; how pro- 
voking ! ” For the good that was in her was 
battling hard with the obstinate self-indulgence 
in grief she had allowed, and she hated to con- 
fess that she had adopted her friend’s plan. As 
she stood hesitating, her eye fell on the paper 
roses lying on her table. 

** Poor little child ! to think she must rely on 
those pathetic caricatures for help,” she said, 
with unconscious meaning. She took them up 
to throw them away, and the movement de- 
tached one of the crumpled white petals, and 
caused it to flutter down upon the floor. Mrs. 
Le Roy stooped to get it ; when she lifted her 
face it was ashen, and her eyes looked with 
terror on the rose petal in her hand. “ K. Le 
R.,” the same letters that were on her cross. 
Involuntarily her other hand grasped that; like 
one in a dream she compared the two. Line 
for line they were alike. Was she dreaming? 
was she sane? 

“What does it mean?” she gasped, sinking 
down upon her couch, and spreading out the 
paper petal. 

Ah, little Sallie, true “ Daughter of the King,” 


A Daughter of the King, 


11 


ia your unquestioning, filial faith ; the message 
that older heads would have scorned to trust to 
such uncertain ways, confidingly sent in sweet 
assurance that the King would guide the work 
begun ‘‘ in His name,” went straight through 
the crowds of the great city to the one woman 
whose need of it had been so great. For a 
while that woman was as one dazed. She could 
not grasp the meaning. How could any one 
know of that lettering save one who knew of her 
baby, whose dainty apparel was all so marked? 
And if they knew of her, it was possible that she 
yet lived, — but no more the baby she had lost. 
Suddenly the child who had brought the flowers 
came like an inspiration to her mind. Could it 
be possible? was that the fascination she had 
always found in her? were those dark eyes the 
same that had looked years before into hers? 
was that golden head the one she had nightly 
pillowed on her breast? Why did she stop to 
conjecture? Up! up! let her go at once, and 
see if that were indeed her baby whose mes- 
sage she saw before her. In a fever of impa- 
tience she hurried to her carriage, almost 
forgetting the big basket she had been so inter- 


78 


KatiCy 


ested in a few moments before. Giving the 
direction she had found beneath the letters, she 
leaned back out of observation and tried to 
control the violent trembling that had seized 
every limb. How and where should she find 
her? The child had shown every mark of 
poverty and sorrow; had she been ill-treated? 
The blood surged in the woman’s face at the 
thought of that and of the long-lost years. 

Poorer and poorer grew the neighborhood. 
Dreading what she might find, she nevertheless 
sat upright now and gazed about her. A sense 
of relief came as they stopped at the door of a 
new and comparatively comfortable dwelling- 
house. Her coachman looked at her with well- 
bred surprise as she refused his help with the 
basket. She would go alone. 

“ Can you tell me if a lame child lives here, 
and — and another with her? ” she asked of an 
Irish woman at the outer door. “ They make 
paper flowers, I think,” she went on, embar- 
rassed at the paucity of her knowledge. 

‘‘ Yis, the third flight above, mum,” the 
woman replied ; “ and it ’s glad I am ye ’ve 
come,” eyeing the basket critically, ** though it 's 


79 


A Daughter of the King, 

too late to do much for the creeple, I 'm 
thinkin*;* 

Hastily thanking her, Mrs. Le Roy went up 
the straight, narrow stairs, and turning, went up 
another flight. There she paused ; a feeling of 
suffocation assailed her. She put her hand to 
her bosom to stop its throbbing, and the little 
cross slipped out. Had her child trod that hard 
and narrow path every day, while her less tender 
feet had fallen on soft coverings? Had her 
baby been brought up in these cold and bare 
rooms, while she had passed the long hours in 
loveless luxury? It was horrible, and the worst 
of it was that (if it were true) she might have 
known it sooner, perhaps, had she not wilfully 
shut herself up from contact with the poor. 
She heard voices just then, and stepping softly 
to a door just ajar, looked in to what, if she 
could only have known it, was a palace, royal 
with the presence of the King. 

Under the window lay Sallie, her eyes bright 
with the struggle just beginning between the 
wasted body and the vigorous soul. Kneeling 
beside her, with one arm about her head, was 
Katie. The child was holding a glass of wine 


8o Katie, 

in her hand, coaxing Sallie to take *‘just one 
little drop.” 

“ Why, Sallie,” Mrs. Le Roy heard her say, 
the doctor said you ’d be better if you only 
had the wine, and now you Ve got it ; and some 
more good things coming to-day, — the lady 
said so.” 

“ I can’t, Katie ” (Mrs. Le Roy, outside, with 
difficulty restrained a cry; it must be her Katie), 
** it hurts me so to swallow. This is better than 
all the rest ; ” and she touched softly a little white 
skirt thrown across the bed, whose border was 
gay with golden threads. 

“ Do you like it? I’m so glad; it was all I 
could think of to do. Don’t you b’lieve the 
King will like it just as well as if I ’d done 
something for the heathen?” 

** Yes, I do,” Sallie said, softly. “ I ’ll tell 
Him, anyway. We did the best we could; if 
He ’d only send your mother, Katie, I ’d know 
we were His daughters.” 

Mrs. Le Roy stepped forward, impetuously; 
but stopped a moment longer, for Aunt Abby 
Ann appeared, and tried, in a wonderfully soft 
voice, to persuade Sallie to take a little wine. 


A Daughter of the King. 8i 

** No, I can’t,” the child said; “ don’t worry; 
I don’t have the pain if I keep still.” 

The hard-faced woman looked at her a mo- 
ment, touched the little skirt softly, and then 
hurried from the room. 

“ Read about the King, princess,” said Sallie ; 
think he’s coming to-day; it’s Christmas, 
you know.” 

Katie brought the big book, and, propping it 
up, read more easily than at the first time the 
words familiar now to them both. 

“ ‘ The King’s daughter is all glorious within: 
her clothing is of wrought gold. ’ ” 

Sallie looked up and smiled brightly. 

“ It is, you know, really now ; ” and she patted 
the gay border. 

“ ‘ She shall be brought to the King in rai- 
ment of needle-work.’ ” 

Mrs. Le Roy could wait no longer; tapping 
gently, she stepped in, and said in a low, sweet 
voice, — 

“ Are these the little girls that make the 
flowers? ” 

Katie looked up with mingled fear and de- 
light. The tall, proud lady with the sorrowful 
6 


82 


Katie, 


eyes, but they were not sorrowful now; they 
looked straight into Katie’s black ones as if they 
would never let her out of their gaze. Sallie 
raised herself on her elbow, her face illumined 
with happiness. Aunt Abby Ann came to the 
inner door and stopped, amazed at the strange 
scene. 

“ Yes, I make the flowers,” Sallie said, quickly. 
“Did — did you find the letters? Did you ever 
lose a little girl ? ” 

“ How did you come by those letters? what 
does it mean? ” Mrs. Le Roy asked, hoarsely. 

Katie shrank back, frightened ; but the prin- 
cess, making a great effort, said : — 

“ My mother found Katie, one night, in the 
street. She tried to find her folks, but could n’t. 
Katie had those letters on all her clo’es. I 
thought they’d find her mother. Katie, they 
did, they did ! you and I are the ‘ Daughters 
of the King’ — He did like our work! Why, 
see, Katie, she ’s one, too,” pointing to the little 
cross that hung from Mrs. Le Roy’s dress. It 
showed only for a moment, for the tall, queenly 
woman had fallen on her knees beside Katie, 
holding out her arms, with such a pleading look 


8 } 


A Daughter of the King. 

in her eyes that the child, losing the last bit of 
fear, yielded to the fascination of the mother- 
love, and laid her golden head softly upon her 
mother’s breast. 

Little Sallie leaned back on her pillows with 
a long sigh. She was perfectly satisfied ; why, 
then, did she have to turn away her head to 
hide the big tears that came when Katie was 
wrapt in loving arms? 

“ It must be nice to find a mother,” Sallie 
thought ; “ maybe I shall find mine before 
long; ” and she turned unconsciously to her old 
friend, the willow, gently waving its branches 
toward the window. 

“ At any rate I shall find the King. I wonder 
who He ’ll send to bring me. ^ With gladness 
and rejoicing shall they be brought’ ” 

She was so still that the others did not notice 
her for a moment. Mrs. Le Roy turned, with a 
mother’s gratitude, to the woman who had cared 
for her child ; but Katie’s clinging arm detained 
her. 

‘'I can’t leave Sallie,” she said; you’d 
never have found me if it had n’t been for 
her.” 


84 


Katie^ 


The woman strained the child to her, and 
turned with a smile to the couch. 

Sallie shall never lack anything again, my 
darling/’ she said. 

Indeed she would not. The willows stooped 
lower and lower. 

“ The ’tendants are coming, — look, Katie ! 
they ’re quite here,” said Sallie, stretching out 
her arms. 

Lower and lower yet, with a restful, waving, 
beckoning motion, the topmost limbs finally 
brushed against the window-pane. Sallie’s 
hands dropped quietly. The “ Daughter of 
the King,” all glorious within, and clad in 
garments of wrought gold, had entered with 
gladness into His palace. 


THE END. 



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